Trump Moving Student Loans to SBA, Special Needs to HHS

President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will immediately move federally backed student to loans to the Small Business Association while special needs programs are to be transferred under the Department of Health and Human Services amid the downsizing of the Department of Education.

“I’ve decided that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler, will handle will all of the student loan portfolio,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, adding that it is a “pretty complicated deal, and that’s coming out of the Department of Education immediately.”

Student loans are one of the primary programs the Education Department handles.

On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle as much of the Department of Education, as can be done without an order from Congress, which established the agency in 1979. Last week, Education Secretary Linda McMahon reduced the Education Department’s staff by half, citing a renewed commitment to “efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.”

“And also, Bobby Kennedy, with the Health and Human Services Department, will be handling special needs and all the nutrition programs and everything else,” Trump said, referring to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“I think that will work out very well. Those two elements will be taken out of the Department of Education,” he said.

The moving of student loans to the SBA comes the same day the department announced plans to cut its staff by 43% with the goal of saving an anticipated $435 million annually by next fiscal year.

“Core services to the public, including the agency's loan guarantee and disaster assistance programs, as well as its field and veteran operations, will not be impacted,” the agency said.

The shifting of loans out of the Education Department continues Trump’s goals of revamping the size and scope of the financial responsibilities of the federal government. Earlier in the month, Trump signed an executive order to alter the Public Service Loan Forgiveness, or PSLF, program to exclude employees of nonprofits who have engaged in “improper activities.”

The order required the Education Department to adjust the program so that student loan forgiveness is not available to those whose work involved illegal immigration, foreign terrorist groups or other illegal activity.